Saturday, 23 January 2016 - 8:37pm

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Published by Matthew Davidson on Sat, 23/01/2016 - 8:37pm in

Until Hawke first exploited the Australian flag a-flutter in government propaganda, leading to its logical, and ridiculous, extreme in Tony Abbott refusing to appear in public with fewer than eight flags, the flag's use was largely restricted to identifying government buildings and military installations. Schoolchildren risked, and often succumbed to, heat-stroke as it was raised and lowered at morning assembly, and Boy Scouts learned the finer points of folding it in an appropriately reverent manner, but for Australia, that was pretty much it, flag-wise.

Having a flagpole in the front yard, or little flags fluttering from one's car, as if one was the self-appointed ambassador from bogan-ville would until recently have been considered deeply weird. Having it painted onto the face of one's children as some sort of stamp of ownership, or tattooed onto an intimate part of a partner's anatomy for — one presumes — nocturnal appreciation, would be regarded as a symptom of psychological pathology, and possibly criminal abuse.

If flying the flag, as an individual citizen, isn't racist, what is it? I can't think of any reason that isn't just as irrational. If, according to Hartsukyer, it's the litmus test of whether one deserves "the rights and privileges that come with living in Australia", it's a very odd one. If you're going to withhold citizenship on that basis, you may not actually be a racist, but you might as well be.